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Friday, 6 May 2011

Has Carla Bruni’s charm worked in India? (PO)

M D Nalapat

The
Obama administration has largely reverted to the Clinton presidency’s
policy of looking at India as a lesser power, although unlike Clinton,
who began mouthing praise on Delhi only when US business interests in
the country reached critical mass, Barack Obama has been generous with
“wampum”, showering sugary words and making insubstantial gestures, even
while it seeks to lock India into a dependent relationship now that
Pakistan is drifting apart from Washington and moving into Beijing’s
orbit. In the nuclear field, the Obama administration is insisting on
conditions that collectively negate the Singh-Bush nuclear accord, in
effect continuing to force India off the path of nuclear capability. In
Space, although a few token gestures have been made, none of these has
been followed up by any intensification of cooperation between NASA and
the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The grip of the
Europeanist world view is too strong for President Obama to acknowledge
that India is at least the equal of France, Britain or Germany, and
needs to be so treated. Instead, the policymakers in the DC Beltway are
still at work using their many friends in the Sonia Gandhi-led coalition
to lock India into a one-sided relationship that would severely affect
this country’s prospects for future growth and technological autonomy
and excellence.

That the Sonia Gandhi-led administration ( for
let us face reality, rather than cling to the legal fiction that any
minister other than - perhaps - himself sees Manmohan Singh as the boss)
is uninterested in going the China route of technological
self-sufficiency has been once again illustrated by the decision to
award the 126-aircraft contract to the French or to a French-led
consortium. A senior Indian politician, who seems to have been given
information from a rival country’s sources once it was clear that France
was in the driver’s seat on what is expected to balloon into a $18
billion contract, has publicly accused France’s First Lady Carla Bruni
of having intervened with Italian-born Sonia Gandhi in order to ensure
that the contract went to Paris in one form or the other, something that
has now happened. For more than a year, reports have been swirling
around Raisina Road that “Number Ten” ( the 10 Janpath residence of the
all-powerful UPA chairperson, who was born in Orbassano in Italy but has
made India her home for four decades) was in favour of the French
option, although such reports were not accompanied by any proof. It may
be that Sonia Gandhi is simply being made the target of a smear
campaign, so hopefully both she as well as Bruni will clarify the nature
of their contacts and discussions before gossip spreads about the
relationship that she shares with the Maino family, who are frequent
visitors to India. Of course, given the timidity of the Indian media on
all negative matters relating to Sonia Gandhi, the allegation made by Dr
Swamy, the Indian politician close to both China and the US, has gone
almost totally unreported.

In the interests of transparency, let
it be stated that this columnist favoured the Swedish option in the
aircraft contract. The reason for this is the fact that the Scandinavian
countries are far less hidebound than the EU core of France and Germany
in their relations with former colonies of the Europeans. An
India-Sweden technological alliance, followed by other linkages with
Finland and Norway, could enable the Scandinavians to compete with the
rest of Europe, while giving India a massive leg up in technological
upgradation. Further, in the case of the Swedish option, India could
have become a shareholder of the company producing the Gripen military
aircraft, thereby ensuring that it enters as a player in the
international market.

The French ( and the French-led European
consortium) are far more stingy with sharing of technology than the
Swedes would be. The geopolitical benefits of buying either of the two
aircraft short listed by the Ministry of Defense would be minimal, given
that past experience shows that for the Franco-Germans, cooperation is a
one-way street, in which India makes the substantive concessions and
the Franco-Germans respond by anodyne phrases and state visits,
Obama-style. Going the “Tata way” would have been best. Ratan Tata, the
visionary boss of the House of Tatas, bought over Jaguar-Land Rover and
thereby ensured a world-class technology boost for all the vehicles
produced by the conglomerate. Had India become a major stakeholder in
SAAB as part of a deal to buy the Gripen, such an advantage could have
come to the aerospace sector as well.

As for the US, there is no
doubt that in geopolitical terms, buying US aircraft would have been
best. Certainly, sources on Raisina Hill say that this was the early
preference of the small group around Prime Minister Singh. However, the
US side refused to relent on the numerous conditionalities that they
loaded onto the purchase. Some of these would have blocked the delivery
of spares during crisis situations, exactly the period when they are
most needed. Others would have opened the way for intrusive US
inspections on air force bases across India. This country is not
Pakistan, and public opinion would not stand for it being declared a
free area for US personnel. The Obama team ( following the Clinton
playbook) was even pushing for a SOFA,

that would give immunity
to US personnel operating in India. Such an agreement would have led to
the impeachment of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister by the
Parliament, and both wisely declined the honour. Tempers were not
lowered when Defense Secretary Gates came calling and insisted on India
accepting the same conditions that Oman or Kuwait would in military
purchases from the US. The fact is that India stands on a level
different from any other country except China and the US itself, and
until Washington understands and operationalises that, it will continue
to lose contracts in India.

What about the Russians? Much of the
Indian Air Force fleet is from Russia, and it may therefore have made
sense to once again turn to Moscow. However, the experience with Moscow
over the past decade has been disappointing. All that the Russians seek
is money,and lots of it, which is why the costs of their equipment and
spares have ballooned year on year. Also, there seems to be different
lobbies in Russia, and a powerful US-EU lobby ( led by Presidenrt
Medvedev) is pushing for India to accept the same terms as are being
offered by the NATO powers. That this would shut Russia out of the
Indian market seems to have escaped those in Moscow who take their cues
from the NATO powers. While some projects are being done jointly with
Russia, each of these has been subjected to sabotage by the NATO lobby
within Russia, the result of which has made that country an unreliable
partner for India. Had the Russians followed the Vladimir Putin line of
policy autonomy, it would have been the best partner, even better than
the Scandinavians. However, it seems that Putin is losing ground in his
country to the muscular lobby that seeks a return to the Yeltsin policy
of going along with NATO apart from occasional verbal bouts of defiance.

$18
billion is a lot of money, and even half of that could have ensured
that India enter the same league as China, which is fast developing
superb military aircraft. However, this would have meant a turning away
from the Sonia Gandhi line of close proximity to the NATO powers,
especially France and Italy. These days, companies based in Italy are
coming to India for contracts in large numbers, and even one of the
world’s worst airlines, Alitalia, has been given prize slots into and
out of India by former Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who is a
close friend of the Nehru family. As this columnist can testify, even
the Business Class in Alitalia is worse than a bullock cart. On one
flight from the US to India, the aircraft made an unscheduled stopover
in Karachi, where the Indian passengers were forced to remain on board
for hours without even a snack. This seems to be Italy’s time in Indian
and also that of France.

In the absence of proof, it would be
wrong to blame Sonia Gandhi for the many contracts that entities from
the two countries are getting in India. However, gossip about the
alleged business activities of her two sisters floats around the
internet (the conventional media being silent, in view of the Income Tax
and other repercussions of annoying VVIPs in India) to the fury of Home
Minister Chidambaram and Finance Minister Mukherjee, who are ever
vigilant at protecting the interests of The Family and are each looking
forward to soon replacing Manmohan Singh as PM.

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About Prof. M. D. Nalapat

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (aka MD Nalapat or Monu Nalapat), holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. The former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. @MD_Nalapat

MD Nalapat's anthology 'Indutva' (1999)

In 1999, Har-Anand published Indutva an anthology of MD Nalapat's 1990s columns from the Times of India. The individual columns are posted here, in 1998 and 1999 of the blog archive, though the exact dates of publication are uncertain.